


me

by Montserrant



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Inspired by Poetry, Poetry, Prose Poem, Self Prompt, Short, Slam Poetry, original - Freeform, prose poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:49:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27596437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Montserrant/pseuds/Montserrant
Summary: melancholic introspection in bite-size servings.





	1. too tight

She hit me. He didn’t see anything, and he swears faith to a God he won’t even get in bed with. A God who sleeps late and does nothing. She’s a liar, he’s an enabler. A puppet of a man dragged by the pathetic excuse of a woman, a mother, a wife. He speaks ill of me when I can’t hear him, and only speaks to me in complacency and never-fulfilled promises. He asks why I haven’t done anything. I ask him, where the hell was he?  
  
He apologized today. God pulled the wool over his eyes, and told him it was all okay. He watched me fall and falter, and he’s so glad I’ve prevailed. That I have so much potential, but life is cruel. God is cruel. He offers me only sympathy, no empathy. His arms remain shut to me and I stay still. He passes by me in a silent corridor. My chest seizes.  
  
It feels like a bra, too tight.


	2. me, you, this house

She gestures at me, and I know she’s yelling at me. But I can’t hear her. A few minutes ago, my sanity started to crawl under my skin, towards my toes, oozing out of the soles of my feet and into my two-day old socks. It’s cold, so hot and prickly, like shoving my ice cold hands under hot water. I tremble, and it’s like just the tips of my extremities are vibrating, sending shocks up and up until my teeth rattle.  
  
She lunges toward me, gets in my face and spits as she demands of me. I can feel her desire rattle through my ribcage. Instead of answering her, I launch the porridge in my hand at the wall behind her. She screams at me, and I screech back and then I am on the front porch. I do not know how I got here.  
  
Mom doesn’t like it when I don’t know something she doesn't know either. My hands shutter as I try to crank the gas to my car. She stands at the storm door, staring at me, but doesn’t open the door. The car rocks into reverse and she only leaves the doorway when my back wheels hit the road. I don’t look back. I drive.  
  
Mom doesn’t like that I think the way I do. It’s no particular ideology. It’s me. 


	3. bed

A strange sound is the first clue to my impending consciousness. I wade through black tar. It clings to me, hot and damp, tanky and uncomfortable, wrapping me in a presence that is somehow insecure but still familiar. The sludge globs through what feels like my fingers, but I don’t know for sure. My existence isn’t physical yet. I am simultaneously weighed down yet floating, somewhere outside the paradigm of the body. The sludge stretches, finally letting me manipulate it’s form.   
  
The bed, a blanket. My phone, ringing.   
  
I shove my arm forward, breaking the mire along with my sense of self. My bones creak as I stretch, trying to understand how this mortal form moves now that I’ve broken the seal of my nightly womb. A body moves next to me. I ignore it in favor of finding and silencing the messenger. The vibrations rumble through the mattress, and I wonder at how everything is so interconnected, even if I myself cannot find my own toes.   
  
“Hello?” I ask, not recalling picking up nor finding my phone.   
  
“Where are you?” comes the non greeting, bitter and seering. My eyes, still dry and spackled with black mud, burn deep in the back of my skull.   
  
“In bed.”   
  
“What bed? Where are you?”   
  
I miss the mud. I miss not being here, not being interconnected so deeply with it all. The sludge is wet, warm and oppressive. I miss the weight on my chest. I think I’d rather suffocate and burn alive.   
  
“I’ll be home soon.”   
  
“I don’t give a fuck, why weren’t you home last night?”   
  
The heat boils over. I still don’t know where my toes are, but my eyes are on fire. Boiling hot water mixes with caked in mud and I can feel it streak down. I roll over in the pool of my own sweat, and bury myself under the blanket. It’s too hot, but I don’t know what else to do.   
  
The phone rings. I don’t remember hanging up. I turn it off.   
  
I press against the body I share this bed with. They too are hot to the touch. I move closer. My hands clasp around their clammy skin. They radiate heat but their skin feels like a cool, sweaty glass. I don’t realize my hands are shaking until they stir and pull me closer.   
  
I shut my eyes, and wish for the sludge to swallow me again. 


	4. the cage

My box has two windows, one door, one soul, three lights. It’s dark with warm walls, cluttered to the brim and a tad dusty. It smells a bit. A bit like home, a bit like sweat, a bit like wasted time. The shadows are long here, veiling me from preconceptions and haunty ideals. Time is of the essence, but the clock slows in this cage of mine.  
  
Sockless feet suction themselves to the floor as I trudge aimlessly within my box.  
  
This box has nine walls, and they feel like they’re falling in. The roof is crooked, claustrophobic and comforting. I wonder how tightly it could hold me before I burst, splattering up the walls and across the ceiling. I wonder how it’d look, bathed in my blood. I wonder what face she’d make, when she opened it up and looked inside.  
  
Hungry mouths chomp on stale bread in the middle of the night, burdened by the light.  
  
The box holds me close, warm embrace threatening. It’s wall constrict, breathing around me and with me. My embodiment of hell, hope, home and healing.  
  
Motionless fingers ache and they reach for solace, the emptiness too much for eager hands.  
  
The wall by my nest glows as the shadows shift. The sound of bird song drifts through the window of the box. Framed by deep blue, the foreground is a deep black, the background awash with warm green. The birds trill. Everyday, they rise. Everyday, they greet my melancholic insomnia with a perseverance only nature knows.  
  
Maybe one day, I’ll leave the box. 

**Author's Note:**

> i came back to this account hoping it would spur me to write. it did not. so i'll leave these here; maybe i'll get some inspiration and stop criticizing myself.


End file.
